Chinese Image Revolution: Contemporary News Photography and Documentary Photography

Author: Hu Wu Gong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-01-01
Features: Since the late 1970s, contemporary Chinese photography has "opened up" history, made the hidden "bright," and given everyone the possibility of stepping into history, filling in the irreplaceable gaps in visual records. To achieve this great transformation, Chinese photography underwent a difficult journey. On the historical timeline, the Chinese photographic revolution bore an undeniable mission! As one of the leading figures of the Shaanxi Group—a key collective in the new era of photography—Hu Wu Gong has remained active at the forefront of contemporary Chinese photography. Together with Hou Dengke, who has passed away, they entered the public eye at the dawn of ideological liberation and became the earliest Shaanxi figures to awaken to modern photography and drive its progress. Living far from the cultural avant-garde centers of the time, they advocated a grassroots perspective and a truthful stance in photography, playing a resounding role in dismantling the power control of traditional ideological frameworks over images, updating the concepts of news photography, and revitalizing the authentic, down-to-earth portrayal of architectural scenes. They were also bold practitioners, planning and executing the groundbreaking large-scale photographic exhibition A Tough Journey, which vividly demonstrated the historical and contemporary value of images during China's transformative period, becoming a milestone in the history of exhibitions following the early new era's The People's Mourning and Nature, Society, and Humanity, as well as later exhibitions like A Moment in Ten Years.
Hu Wu Gong's entry into photography was as a journalist in the media, so discussing him inevitably involves news photography. In the true sense, Chinese news photography experienced a brief period of brilliance in the 1930s. After photography entered China, due to the historical limitations of a late-developing nation, modern media remained backward for a long time, and news photography failed to achieve an independent form. Photography's primary social function at the time was as a medium for personal memorials and identity recognition. Although news photography emerged in the early 20th century, it was merely decorative in limited illustrated magazines, with content mostly focusing on the weddings, funerals, and official gatherings of the elite, or at most, the activities of political figures and the ribbon-cutting ceremonies of a few projects. These topics fell far short of the political and informational requirements of news. It wasn’t until the 1930s that large-scale news photography formally took the stage of Chinese history. The start of the 1937 Japanese invasion of China further pushed Chinese news photography to its zenith. That period was the youth of Chinese news photography, producing a generation of outstanding photojournalists such as Huang Ying, Wang Xiaoting, Wei Shouchong, Sha Fei, Shi Shaohua, and Fang Dazeng. The 1949 revolution brought significant changes to Chinese news photography. Highly politicized ideology gradually tightened its control over media, transforming news into one-way political propaganda, where objective informational characteristics largely disappeared. This shift occurred almost simultaneously across both sides of the Taiwan Strait, though to varying degrees. The Cultural Revolution that began in 1966 on the mainland rendered news photography virtually extinct. News became a tool of political violence, characterized by the arbitrary distortion of objective facts and the deliberate concealment of information. In the later stages of the Cultural Revolution, with frequent changes in the political landscape, the practice of editing and altering news photographs had become commonplace and accepted. During this time, people could see nothing but false social life in news photographs—the inevitable natural disasters and social issues on China’s land were invisible, replaced by perpetual smiling faces and scenes of devout study, meetings, and labor production.
After the decade-long nightmare finally ended, a group of journalists led by Jiang Qisheng of Xinhua News Agency began to "rectify the chaos" by critically reassessing the state of past news photography, reemphasizing its authenticity and other theoretical issues, and calling for the restoration of news photography’s intrinsic value. However, changing long-standing habits could not be achieved through slogans or a few theoretical seminars alone; it required practical breakthroughs. During this period, Hu Wu Gong’s news photograph At the Moment of Flood, broke the awkward situation of "listening to the bell but not seeing the caravan." While photographing the rescue efforts during a flood in southern Shaanxi’s Ankang, Hu captured the genuine, high-stakes moments of people battling the ruthless forces of nature. His photograph avoided the conventionalized "high, grand, and all-encompassing" style of previous news images, instead depicting the perilous struggle between humanity and the violent natural world. Through his objective, momentary captures, he shattered the dishonest attitude of news photography, which had long been about staging and avoiding difficulties, and instead presented the conflict, danger, and will of those present in the scene.
However, Hu Wu Gong was fully aware of the complexities. He said, "As a carrier of social information, news photography is both a means and an end, with its own internal laws. It should provide a three-dimensional, holographic record and reflection of new developments in social life." And, "The fundamental function of news photography is to capture, reproduce, and disseminate the material forms—fact forms—presented in specific times and spaces. The authenticity of news photography lies in facts and their judgment. In news photography, facts are external and visible, while judgment is intuitive and latent. The interplay between visible facts and latent judgment constitutes the principle of authenticity in news photography." These remarks demonstrate that Hu Wu Gong had a highly accurate and forward-thinking understanding of the direction of news photography during the era of ideological liberation. He emphasized the informational nature of news but also recognized the underlying stance and value orientation. Hu Wu Gong’s words and actions regarding news photography made an indelible contribution to "rectifying the chaos" in the state of news photography at the beginning of the new era.
Hu Wu Gong and his friends in the Shaanxi Group used news photography as a starting point to actively advocate for a revolution in images. Although they repeatedly employed various slogans and methodologies—such as realism, structuralism, and phenomenological semiotics—to reinforce their voice, beneath these surface-level discourses, we see that they a humanitarian photographic stance and a positive orientation toward reflecting social reality. Most of the Shaanxi Group’s images from the outset accurately targeted the realities of life. Their lenses primarily focused on the myriad scenes of Shaanxi’s Guanzhong Plain and the Loess Plateau, largely in a documentary style. At the time, the strong salonist trends and inclinations within the photographic circle also influenced them, but their lived experiences in grassroots settings and the challenging conditions of photography compelled their lens choices toward ordinary, unpretentious life. Thus, their images stood in stark contrast to the mainstream "main theme" and "glorious snow and night" paradigms of the era. Such a situation was extremely rare in contemporary Chinese photography, representing a resilient and powerful marginal voice outside the mainstream ideological framework. It was a resurgence of realism, upholding the principle of caring for China’s modern societal transformation through images, following the intellectual awakening period of Beijing’s April Photography Association in the new era.
Another characteristic of the Shaanxi Group was their strategic approach to society. From the beginning, they actively used media dissemination and theoretical discourse strategies to expand their influence and assert their voice. They proactively established relationships with various media outlets to publish their works. While photographing, they also wrote articles, seeking theoretical justification for their creative practices. They often acted independently but collectively when necessary. In their external stance and discourse, they maintained a high degree of unity, even amid intense internal conflicts. Some members occasionally displayed what modern viewers might consider overly sentimental behavior, but this was actually a survival strategy and a necessary choice, as they were on the fringes. Their advocacy, practices, and operations formed a complex yet dazzling landscape in China’s photographic world between the 1980s and 1990s.
Today, as a collective, the Shaanxi Group has disbanded. However, their commitment to reality, emphasis on the documentary nature of images, and steadfast humanitarian stance in photography have deeply influenced subsequent generations of photographers. Hu Wu Gong has now compiled his words and thoughts from the past two decades into a book. It is both an of his inner journey and a personal perspective on the tortuous 20-year path of Chinese news and documentary photography. In this sense, Hu Wu Gong’s The Chinese Photographic Revolution—A Journey of Contemporary News and Documentary Photography is an important historical record of China’s image culture since the reform and opening-up and the intellectual liberation in the new era. It holds significance for both the present and the future, making it a text worth reading.